Controverial finalist headed to Crist

Naked Politics hears that after meeting in secret, the Judicial Nominating Commission added outgoing U.S. Navy general counsel Frank Jimenez to the list of finalists sent to Gov. Charlie Crist. Jimenez, 44, served as Gov. Jeb Bush's general counsel. He famously sent an email in 1999 suggesting the creation of shadow JNCs to recruit those ideologically similar to Bush, which earned him some enemies scattered throughout the Florida Bar. Edith Osman, a former Florida Bar president, was on the strange conference call/public meeting, earlier this evening, during which JNC members debated reconvening to consider more finalists. "I'm concerned about the process and how it worked. And now you have another name out there who wasn't a first choice," said Edith Osman, a former Florida Bar president. "The call was troubling." Osman said she's also concerned that the JNC panelists didn't consider the female finalist, Judge Gill Freeman, as a diverse choice, nor why they didn't talk about adding more female finialists in general.